Restaurant worker walkouts widen

Today is not exactly a red-letter day for the restaurant industry. Fast-food restaurants and retailers are expected to be hit by the largest-yet walkout over hourly workers’ demands for better pay.

Mini-strikes started last November in NYC and spread this summer to Chicago, Detroit and Kansas City; on Thursday, organizers expect action in up to 35 cities. Striking workers are demanding higher pay—more than double the current national minimum wage of $7.25—and the right to unionize.

If you think this is a passing fad, think again. “It’s absolutely going to continue to grow,” Steven Ashby, a University of Illinois labor and employment relations professor, told Time Magazine. “The energy of the workers, their passion, their commitment, is very, very high. They basically feel like, ‘We’ve got nothing to lose.’”

Pressure to increase wages is only one labor issue facing restaurant owners; many are also fretting over how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will hurt their bottom line. Not so with Starbucks. While some restaurants and chains like Papa John’s have opted to curtail full-time staffers’ hours to avoid having to insure them, c.e.o. Howard Schultz said this week that the company plans to maintain existing healthcare coverage for all employees—even part-timers—regardless of how the new law affects insurance.

"It's not about the law. It's about responsibility we have to the people who do work and who represent us," Schultz told CNN this week.

There’s a bit of progress on yet another battleground for many restaurant operators, the feared health inspection system. New York establishments won a victory recently with a reduction in fines to pre-2010 levels, before the city adopted its infamous letter grade scheme. Under the existing system, violations could result in fines from $200-$2,000; a new system will set fines for 60 percent of all violations at $200. The fines were just one aspect of the new system that restaurant owners considered irksome; 66 percent of the restaurateurs surveyed by City Council last year called the letter-grade system “poor.”

Finally, a ruling by the IRS that automatic gratuities are wages, not tips, has some restaurant owners rethinking their policies regarding tips for large parties. Many are mulling the idea of dropping these gratuities, designed to protect servers from cheapskate guests. But if these larger gratuities are deemed wages, servers will need to wait until payday to see the money. The rule would go into effect Jan. 1.

Darden has already dropped automatic tipping at about 100 restaurants, according to the Reading (PA) Eagle. The company will decide whether to extend that policy across all of its brands by the end of the year.

Discuss this Article 3

Someone should tell them the truth. The unions will take their raise in dues and people like me who are going to retire in 5 years or less will take their jobs. Who would you hire for a part-time employee if you had the choice with a retired person looking for part-time work, Masters Degree in Food Science and very knowledgeable about food safety or an unskilled person? This is not a career position but they are turning it into one and it will be taken away from them.

The so caled strike regarding higher wages for restaurant employees will cause more harm than good if the workers ever got near their 15.00 per hour rate. If they were successful, restaurants would be forced to both cut hours and personnel, and raise menu pricing. Then also consider the domino effect, where you'll see the good folks at your local grocery and retailers who work as cashiers, baggers, etc. They'll want the same higher wages, and what do you think that's going to do to your grocery billl? And lets not forget the numerous other "unskilled laborers" Farm workers, janitors, telemarketers, etc.
I'm all for a lilvling wage, but in a free market society, not everyone is going to make it unless they learn skills which wouldl demand higher wages.